Sunshine
by Lumos-Graystripe
Summary: Nico may be a child of death, but after almost slipping away, maybe he needs someone to pull him out of the shadows. A Solangelo fic.
1. Chapter 1

Having friends, especially those who wanted to see him, was a foreign concept. Reyna, Coach Hedge, the crew of the _Argo II_ all seemed to enjoy seeing him, and even though he thought about them, and marveled at the fact that he now had friends, he at least knew what friends were. He could put Reyna and Jason into the friends category without hours of thought.

But then there was Will. Nico knew that Will worked in the infirmary, but even so he seemed to see Will an awful lot. Usually Nico would've ignored someone passing by what seemed like every three seconds, fixing his pillows or getting him to drink something, or he would've pushed them away. But there was something about Will, something about the way his eyes pulled you toward him like a bright, clear sky pulls you outside, something about the way his grin seemed to warm up the room. Nico still didn't like Will bothering him, but he didn't tell Will to stop.

When Nico opened his eyes, it was dark outside, and he could see the flickering light from the campfire out the window. His gaze drifted to the deep shadows in the corners of the room. He felt a chill travel down his spine when he thought of the last time he'd traveled the shadows, when he'd almost become one. He fumbled with the lamp for a second, and felt uncharacteristically relieved by the glow of light when it turned on. He'd never been afraid of the dark before; sometimes he'd even shied away from light. Why did he feel so nervous, now, around his element?

A head poked through the doorway, and the room seemed to brighten as Will Solace walked in. Nico scowled in spite of the warmth that seemed to seep into the room. "Is that some kind of Apollo thing?" Nico said with annoyance he didn't entirely feel.

Will looked confused. "Wait... what? Apollo thing?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Solace. How the room got brighter when you walked in, did you..." His voice trailed off and his cheeks burned as Will raised his eyebrows at Nico.

"Needed a little sunshine, death boy? I know I've got a sunny personality, but I can't literally brighten a room!" Will laughed and plopped down in the armchair that Jason had occupied earlier in the day.

Will looked over as Nico said, "So why're you here? Shouldn't you be healing people, or at the campfire, or something?"

He shrugged. "I needed a break. I've been on my feet all day; besides, I could stand to see a friendly face. Or, in your case, a friendly skeleton. You're way too thin."

"Just because I'm skinny, _golden boy,_ doesn't-" Nico was cut off by Will's chuckle.

"Golden boy, did you say?" As Will looked at him with an amused smile, Nico slumped back into his pillows. He suddenly felt something in his stomach-queasiness?

Through the window, campers were silhouetted against the flames as they left the sing-along, heading back to their cabins. Will's eyes followed Nico's gaze, and he glanced at the clock at the wall. "I wish I could stay longer, but if I don't get some sleep, _I'll _fade into shadows; plus, the harpies would be after me."

"Good," Nico said, "Leave me in peace. I've had to endure enough of your mindless chatter."

Will stood and stretched, and walked out of the room. At the door he paused, and looked back at Nico. "I'd stop coming by," he said, as an impish grin spread across his face, "But you know you'd miss me."

The door clicked shut, leaving Nico staring at where Will had stood a second ago, wondering why the darkness seemed more present in his absence.


	2. Chapter 2

Nico left the infirmary after lunch, crossing the green from the big house back towards the cabins. Sunlight fell across him shoulders, grounding him, making him feel present; he shuddered when he thought that just a few days ago, he had almost become a ghost. He lifted his eyes to where the Hades cabin stood, a dark, ominous presence, shadowed even in the heat of day, and felt a slight chill along his spine.

_Is this what people feel when they see _me? _A dark, unfriendly presence? No wonder they edge away when I'm near._ He saw a flash of blond across the lawn, and his head snapped up, almost involuntarily. It was one of Will's siblings, laughing at a joke Katie Gardener had told. _Who did you think it was? Will? Why would you even care if it _was _Will?_

_Because he needs to stop pestering me,_ he thought, sighing. Even as a thought, it was half-hearted. He looked at the Hades cabin again with distaste, and flopped down on the benches by the campfire.

His mind wandered to the conversation he'd had with Will before he'd left the infirmary.

"Hi." Will handed Nico a few pills and a glass of water, smiling when Nico handed back the empty glass. Nico's eyes flitted away from Will, to a painting of Persephone on the wall, holding a bunch of flowers. _Is it possible, _he thought wildly, _that Will's smile is so bright, he could made daisies bloom in the night? _Will's pen scratched on a clipboard, taking a note, and Nico shook his head. Where did that though come from?

Will was still smiling as he turned around, but instead of returning the gesture, Nico stood up. "Bye," he replied, moving toward the door.

"Wait." Will's arm blocked his path, and Nico bumped into it. He felt a strange jolt in his stomach. _Pills, _he said to himself. _It's the pills. _"I'm not sure you should go just yet. I think staying a little longer might be a good idea."

"What? Why? You said three days, Solace. It's been three days. I'm fine. I'm healthy." Nico looked fiercely at Will, swallowing the words he didn't say: "You make me feel... confused. Uncomfortable and yet at ease. You're messing with my head. I'm probably not better, but I need to sort my thoughts out, and I can't think when you're around."

"I don't know, Nico... I feel like-"

Nico cut off Will's words more harshly than he'd intended. "If it's just a _feeling_, Will, there's no reason for me to stay. I'm not sick, and I can sleep just as well in my cabin as I can here."

"Are you sure? I really think you're not better yet..." Will sounded concerned, and a little hurt.

Nico pushed past his still outstretched arm. "I'm fine, Will. Really."

He shifted his back on the wooden bench of the amphitheater where he lay, watching clouds drift across the sky. Holding his hands up above his face, he examined them, silhouetted against bright blue. They were pale, like ghosts of spiders, he thought with a sigh, dropping them back down. His right hand rested on his stomach, and his left hand hung off the edge of the bench, into the small bit of shade underneath. A cold feeling danced across his fingers. Lifting his hand, he watched as his fingers solidified into pale flesh. His fingertips had turned to smoke in the shadows.

It didn't surprise him. He'd been fading a lot less after Coach Hedge's sports herbal medicine had started to kick in and he'd spent a few days in the infirmary, but he wasn't healed. Not completely. He wasn't sure if he'd ever really heal all the way.

He knew he should have told Will. Saying he was fine was a lie; but at the same time, he knew what Will did to his stomach, and his head, and he wasn't certain he'd ever be fine while Will was watching over him, either.

Pushing himself into a warmer patch of sunlight, he curled around the hand that had turned to smoke when in the shadows, and fell asleep.

Will slipped out of dinner a few minutes early, looking for Nico when he realized Nico hadn't shown up for dinner. Will headed toward the cabins under a sky that was fading to inky blue and scattered with stars, intending to pull Nico's moping self out of the Hades cabin to eat something before dinner ended. He stopped short, however, when he passed the amphitheater, noticing a small shape curled up like a cat on one of the benches.

Stepping closer to the younger boy, a small smile played on his face upon seeing that it was, as he'd thought, Nico. Gently, Will eased him into his arms, and walked towards the Hades cabin with Nico curled against his chest, deep asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Nico woke, not to the daylight seeping through the cracks in the door or the clamor of campers outside, but to the creak of the cabin door, through which Will Solace appeared. Upon stepping into the cabin, Will strode across the room and pulled heavy emerald curtains back from the windows.

"No wonder you're deathly pale and sickly looking. You're shutting out the sun," Will crossed the room to Nico's bed, where the gaunt boy was still blinking sleepily. "Vitamin D, Nico," Will tapped on the nightstand nearby with the glass he was holding for emphasis. "Vitamin D. It's an important vitamin. It comes from sunlight, something that you are not getting enough of."

"W-Will?" Nico scrambled into a sitting position, his voice panicky. "Wha- Why are you here? Nico shoved his hands under his sheets, hoping to hide his fingers, indistinct and smoky in the Hades cabin, where everything seemed to be in shadow. _If Will sees my hands..._

Eyes twinkling, Will laughed lightly at Nico, whose hair was rumpled and eyes were thick with sleep. "As I recall, you pronounced yourself as 'healthy.' I'm not sure I'd call sleeping seventeen hours healthy, would you?"

Nico pulled the long sleeve of his shirt down to cover his indistinct fingers before reaching for a pillow from the next bed to throw at Will. "Fine, I'm still sick. Doesn't that give you more reason to let me sleep, though? Why are you disrupting my 'slumber of healing'?"

"I'm worried that you secretly yearn to join the Hypnos cabin." Will grinned and fiddled with strand of his honey colored hair. "Clovis would..." Nico's eyes stayed on Will's hair. _It's honey_, he thought, _drenched in sunshine. _His eyes followed the lock of hair from the top of Will's head to where it waved out slightly, and then curled around his ear. He felt a strange urge to brush it back from Will's face.

"Anyway," Nico blinked and refocused on what Will was saying. "I came because you left the infirmary a little, ah, abruptly yesterday. If I would have been thinking clearly, I would have given you a bottle of pills to take with. I think rest and some meds for a few more days could do you some good. You're already sleeping an inordinate amount, so I don't need to hassle you about that, but really," Will held out a glass of water and two blue capsules. "Take these. It's a good idea."

_Shoot. _Nico glanced at where his hands were, buried under the covers. _How can I take that without him seeing my hands? _His eyes flitted to the glass of water, and then rested on Will's face. "Leave it on the table. I'll take it in a minute."

Will gave him a knowing smile. "Sure you will, as soon as I shoot an arrow straight." Will's lack of archery skills, despite his father being Apollo, were well known. He'd shoot an arrow straight when Hera became friends with Annabeth. That is to say, never. "Take it," Will intoned goodheartedly. "It's not poison."

Nico grabbed the glass with his sleeve covering his fingers, then snatched at the pills, hoping to move his hand fast enough for them to evade Will's notice.

"Hey!" Will caught Nico's retreating hand, encircling the gaunt boy's wrist with his thumb and middle finger. Will's grip was strong, and warm. Nico felt his cheeks burn scarlet. "Your hand..."

Will studied Nico's face for a long moment, then looked down to where he'd caught Nico's wrist. Uncurling Nico's fingers, he examined how Nico's fingertips had turned to smoky mirages of themselves. The pills Nico was holding fell to the floor and rolled under the bed.

"You lied." Will's eyes, the same color as a cloudless afternoon, meet the brown ones across from him. Nico could read dismay, and, possibly, sadness in Will's gaze. "You lied so you could leave the infirmary...but why did you want to leave it so badly? ...Is it...me? Am I bothering you too much?"

Nico drew in a breath. "No, it's...not _you_, it's more...I can't think. When you're around, I mean, I'm...confused, maybe, or...my thoughts don't make sense," he finished, wincing at how his words had come out.

Will's face fell. "You can just tell me you don't want to be friends, Nico." Will let Nico's hand drop back onto the bed. "I'll have one of my siblings see if they can do something about your hands." Will pulled a small plastic container out of his pocket and set it on the nightstand.

"Will, no, it's not that-"

Will cut him off. "Two pills, twice a day, for another week. I'll have someone check in then." Will's shook his head, his disappointment evident.

Nico closed his eyes, and didn't open them until the door wheezed shut. Inexplicably, felt his throat tighten. _You've lost friends before. Get over it. _He looked at the spot where Will had stood moments before. _You _have _lost friends before. But this isn't the same. This feels...different. _

Shadowed walls, polished floors; Nico knew where he was. But at the same time, he was lost. Completely lost.


	4. Chapter 4

Will's siblings paused at the storage room door, glancing uncertainly at each other. Light glowed from where the door was cracked open, and the heavy thumps of boxes being moved sounded over the whispers being exchanged at the threshold.

"I'm not sure if this is a good idea..." Anna looked nervous, her small hands fiddling with the end of her braid. At ten, she was one of the youngest Apollo campers, but her strong proclivity for healing and her adoration of Will had made her want to come with. "Will told _us_ to heal him for a reason; we can't tell him we can't and let him down!"

"We're not going to let a patient...disappear...because we weren't able to tell Will that we can't heal him, and need help." Alan's sharp eyes caught each person's gaze. "Will is the best healer we have. He knows better than any of us: the patient comes first. No matter what."

Ivy pushed a strand of short, dark hair behind her ear, considering Alan's words. She stood out from the rest of the group, her looks mirroring her mother's Asian background, but she'd long ago crossed that barrier, and felt at home among her siblings' blond heads and athletic builds. "Alan's right. He's not getting any better, and he could get worse really fast if nothing's done."

"He _has _gotten worse. And none of us can stop it, especially since Dad's gone quiet..." Alan glanced out the window, to where the sun burned low in the sky. "Will is his best hope." Alan glanced around at the reluctantly nodding heads, and pushed the door open, stepping inside.

"Will?" Will's head popped up amid a stack of boxes labeled 'bandages'. As he turned to look at them, his siblings seemed to edge back; even though nothing close to unfriendly crossed his face, the lack of a grin, for Will, was worse than a scowl.

"Yeah?" His siblings looked uncomfortably at each other, unsure what to say now that they'd started.

Ivy glanced back at her siblings, then stepped forward. "We're having trouble healing Nico. We realize you asked _us_ to heal him for a reason-"

"Although you won't tell us what the reason is..." Alan muttered.

"-But all us have tried, and we haven't made any headway. He might even be getting worse."

Alan glanced at Ivy, then focused on Will. "We know you don't... We know that something... We know you asked us to do it," he finished lamely. "But we can't." Alan's voice gained confidence, and his eyes locked onto Will's. "And no matter what's going on in your life, the patient comes first. Always. You're the one told me that; now I'm telling you."

There was a moment's pause, where Will's face became a weather map, emotions shifting across his face like fronts. The trend, though, was worry. He looked at his siblings without focusing on anyone in particular, and nodded.

Will set down the box of bandages he was sorting. "Is he in his cabin?" Alan gave a brief nod in reply. "I'll take a look."

Will crossed the room unusually quickly, pushing open the door as he left and leaving it askew in his haste. No one spoke for a moment, exchanging wordless glances with each other.

"It seems like Will's sunshine disappeared with Apollo." Anna's voice seemed to be amplified in the quiet of the moment, before the silence froze over again, like a layer of ice coating the room, with not a spot of warmth to melt it.

Nico's eyes fluttered open as the dark wooden door to his cabin swung open, hitting the windowpane opposite it as a tall, lean figure barreled through. "Nico!" Will's voice hit Nico's ears like a cool drink on a scorching day, melting away his worries. "Who do you think you are, refusing to get better? I've sent in my best healers, and they haven't been able to make any headway!" Will stopped at Nico's bedside, his clear blue eyes catching Nico's. "The nerve."

Nico searched Will's face, looking for something to tell him that Will was joking. An arched eyebrow, the slightest curve of a smile - there. The smallest twinkle in the corner of his eye. Nico's shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch, and the barest trace of a smirk appeared in the corner of his mouth. "You haven't sent in your best healers." The smirk grew, filling his face.

"Wha- are you insulting the competence of my healers?" Will tried for indignant, but he was struggling to suppress a grin to match Nico's. It felt so good, so _right _to be talking again, the banter between like running, where they each fell easily into step, matching each other stride for stride.

"No. I'm just pointing out the fact that you haven't come by, and your skills far outstrip the rest, so you can hardly say you've sent your best."

"Well, I-" He shook his head in defeat. "I'm here now, anyway, and I heard you've been getting worse. Let me look." Will glanced at the edge of the bed, seeming to consider sitting there, before letting his gaze sweep the room for a chair. He grabbed a stool from across the room and put it next to Nico's bed. He sat on it, and his voice became businesslike. "Give me your hand, please."

Nico's grin dropped into an expression of worry as he pulled his hand out of his cave of covers, and uncurled his fingers from a loose fist. His hand had turned entirely into smoke.

Will's face was alight with shock. He reached out tentatively, hesitantly, letting his fingers hover an inch over the surface of Nico's shadowy hand. Will caught Nico's gaze, and saw that the worry that filled his own eyes reflected there, jockeying for space amid nervousness and fear.

Will swallowed and broke eye contact, looking down for a moment, in which he composed himself. _You are the healer. Your concerns aren't important. All that's important is the job at hand; and you need to be focused on that. Nothing else. _Will trained his eyes on Nico's hand, letting his fingers fall to the point where they should have been touching pale flesh; instead, they passed right through. It was as if nothing was there, except the memory of thin fingers and soft skin, and a feeling of cold from a breeze that wasn't there.

Will's eyes fluttered closed and he started to mutter a light, quick string of words that evoked a feeling of warmth and brightness, focused on Nico's hand. The indistinct, smoky forms of his fingers became denser for a moment, struggling to form, but as soon as Will stopped speaking, they relaxed back into smoke.

Nico looked distraught. His voice struggled to sound controlled. "Does-" Nico swallowed. "Does that mean I can't be healed? Will it get worse? Will-will I _become smoke entirely?" _

Nico's dark eyes, filled with undisguised fear, fixed on Will, praying for Will to tell him he had a chance, but Will's attention, usually so fixed on Nico, was elsewhere. Will's hands pushed the beads on his camp necklace as he whispered to himself, lost in the recesses of his mind where he stored ailments and remedies. His fingers pushed a bead decisively, and Will's head jerked up, his eyes alight. "Yes!"

Nico looked like someone had smashed a frying pan over his head.

Will blink and focused on Nico's face, his excitement dropping away at Nico's shell-shocked expression. "Um, what did you say? Or what did I say? Or..."

Nico cut him off anxiously. "Am I going to fade away completely?"

"No! No, I think I figured it out. What's eating away your essence like this; it's the shadows," Will explained, "They suck what little warmth and life you can muster out of you, and try to pull you into the shadows. That's why those words I was saying were helping, they were inducing warmth and light into what I was focusing on, your hands." Will was speaking quickly, his excitement at having found the answer returned, and his words were tumbling over one another. "You've gotten worse because you've been here. This cabin is the darkest place in camp. If anywhere is going to suck the light out of you, this place is."

Nico furrowed his brows, piecing the information together. "So I have to go back to the infirmary?"

"No." Nico looked up in surprise at Will's words.

"But you just said-"

"The infirmary's not where you need to go; even there, the shadows pulled at you, and you were fading. Not as quickly as you are here, but still..." Will paused, seeming to decide something. "I'll have to get Chiron's approval, of course, but seeing as I'm the head counselor, so I get to make to calls, and it's in the name of medicine, and dad's... gone silent..." Will met Nico's eyes. "You'll have to stay in the Apollo cabin."


	5. Chapter 5

Nico _hated _the Apollo cabin.

When he'd first walked in, he'd thought a daffodil had exploded. Sunlight poured through the full ceiling skylight, blinding him wherever he was and infusing the walls with a golden glow, ensuring that the cabin was never darker than sunset. The walls were ochre, the rugs were goldenrod, the pillows were lemon colored. Besides the honey wood floor, everything was yellow, except for what was metallic, - the curtain rods, the bed frames, the knobs on the dresser - which were gold. There was always music, usually from a lyre, or a flute, or any number of Will's siblings singing anything from opera to pop music, but even when Nico lay on his bed when the cabin was empty, hymns seemed to seep from the floorboards. There was a seemingly endless supply of laughter and freckles and incredibly similar blonde heads that made his head snap up every time someone walked past. And there was always Will. Will asking him to come try archery. Will telling him he really should eat breakfast. Will trying to convince him that poetry writing could be fun, if only he'd try it. Will, Will, Will.

He wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Or at least that's what he told himself.

Nico was stretched out across his bed, the bunk under Will's (Which, funnily enough, had been the only bed available when he arrived at the Apollo cabin). Feather-light sheets and pillows with sun designs were pushed to the edges of the bed. His head hung off the edge of the mattress, and his eyes were lazily scanning a sheaf of papers he held above his face. _Training... left flank from behind... War Elephant... _Reyna had sent him notes on the legion's new offensive strategies, and he'd promised her he'd look over them and offer suggestions. He had a slightly different opinion about helping her now, though, after realizing that what Reyna considered tactical notes were actually the length of a short novel.

Blonde flashed in the corner of his vision, and the floorboards nearby groaned. Nico resisted the urge to see who it was. He blinked and refocused on the words in front of him. _Approach from the front with two cohorts, while... _the words spun around in his head; he'd been reading the same sentence for the past five minutes, and had no idea what it said. _Even reading poetry sounds better than this._

The ladder creaked on the side of the bunk bed, and Nico glanced up a few seconds later, in time to see a startlingly yellow pillow fall at his face from above.

Nico scrambled away from the hurtling pillow, but it caught the edge of his face and smacked the papers from his hands. His eyebrows scrunched together in a frown, and he rubbed the tip of his ear where the pillow's beadwork had hit it. Twisting his head around, he sighed as he surveyed the notes. Fifteen pages or more were scattered and shuffled around his bed. He shifted his gaze to the ceiling, and directed a withering glare upward.

A mop of golden curls and a jubilant grin were suspended four feet above Nico's frown. "I thought that'd get your attention," Will said, unable to keep the smile off his face. "I was standing next to you for a full minute, but that didn't seem to do the trick."

"You could try using my name to get my attention, you know. It _is_ what most people do." Nico's eyes held their annoyed look, but the corner of his mouth twitched up towards a smile.

"Alright, _Nico_." Will lifted his chin in mock importance. "_Nico_, can I ask you a question, please, _Nico_."

Nico's stomach did an odd sort of flip when Will said his name. He gave his head a shake and threw the cushion back at Will's pleased expression. "It's _may I ask you a question?_ And the answer is no, I'm not interested in pegasus riding or canoeing or climbing the lava wall. I happen to be in the middle of something important," Nico waved the hand holding the stack of papers he'd started collecting, "and I was making progress until you so _elegantly _interrupted me."

Will smirked. Nico's expression had turned into the mock-irritated look it took on whenever Will tried to get Nico to leave the cabin and come do anything, and Will knew that meant Nico was secretly relived to have a distraction from whatever he'd been doing before. "I'm going to ask you anyway."

Nico sighed, but it was getting harder to fight the smile that threatened to cover his face. "Why do you even ask if you can ask, if you ask me anyway?"

"_So, Nico,_" Will climbed back down the ladder on the end of the bunks, and stood next to where Nico was collecting papers. "I think it's time for you to participate in life. What sounds fun? Arts and crafts? Strawberry picking? How about-"

"I already said no. Like I said, I'm busy with this."

Will crouched next to Nico, and picked up the last sheet of paper. Nico's eyes followed the sheet as Will picked it up, and then flicked up to his face. "Nico," Will's voice had lost its jest, and his eyes implored Nico to listen. "I'm not asking anymore. If you won't pick something you'd like to do, you can come with me to translate poems. I'm behind on my work for Ancient Greek class, and you need to interact with people, so we can work on them together."

Will held the paper out to Nico, and Nico reached for it. His fingers brushed against Will's as he grabbed the paper, and a shiver went down his spine. Nico bit his lip.

"Ok, fine. Let's go translate poems."


	6. Chapter 6

The library in the big house was much too small, Nico thought, to hold _this many books._ Weathered oak shelves stretched from the scuffed floor to the ceiling, with ladders on tracks leaning against them. A heavy oaken table stood in the middle of the room, with a few straight-backed chairs surrounding it. Mismatched armchairs cluttered a corner of the room, blocking some bookshelves. A single bowl shaped lamp hung from the ceiling, struggling to illuminate the room.

The furniture, though, wasn't what caught Nico's eye; It was the sheer number of books crammed into the room. Dusty tomes with peeling gold letters lined the shelves, and paperback copies of young adult series (all translated into ancient greek) were crammed into the spaces in between. Piles of novels perched precariously on the arms of the armchairs, and twenty different editions of the _Illiad_ crowded the steps of the ladder closest to him. The surface of the table could have been fuchsia, for all he knew - not an inch of it was visible.

"This room is a mess," Nico said, kicking aside a sheaf of papers that had fallen to the floor sometime ago. "Why doesn't anyone bother to clean it up? There's no way you could find anything in here quickly. Surely the Athena kids would do something?"

"They did, before the Titan War. After that, when all the new cabins were being built, the Athena campers decided to expand their cabin to build a huge high-tech library for themselves." Will slid a book off a shelf, checking to see if it was what he was looking for. He looked at it for a second, then put it back and kept walking. "This library is mostly unused now, because the Athena kids were the only ones who regularly came here. Now there's just a lot of dust." Will said, swiping a finger along a shelf and leaving a line of clean wood behind.

"What book are you looking for?" Nico asked, watching the way Will's quick fingers skimmed over the spines of the books.

"The works of Sappho." Nico stopped, raising an eyebrow at Will. "Umm..." Will fumbled with the book he was holding. "Annabeth recommended it... and I've been studying Plato, and he thought Sappho's writing so eloquent that he considered her one of the muses." Will said the last part very fast, and heat had started to rise in his cheeks, but Nico pretended to not notice.

Nico stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Whatever." Will busied himself with fitting the book he was holding back into the gap on the bookshelf that was much too narrow to hold it. "And it's there." Nico nodded with his chin to the top shelf, where 'The Works of Sappho' stood, hidden in shadow, among other books that looked like they hadn't been opened since Chiron was a foal.

"How can you see that?" Will asked. "I can't even make out the books, much less their titles."

"Hades," Nico replied, gesturing toward his eyes. "Darkness is less of an issue for me. But don't expect me to reach it for you; you're the tall one."

Will's cheeks reddened again. "Umm... right," He mumbled. "I'll just..." He gestured towards the bookshelf, before turning toward it and reaching for the book.

Nico watched as Will's fingers scrambled to gain purchase on the thick spine of the book, not missing the way Will's Camp Half-Blood t-shirt pulled up to show a slice of the tanned skin on his back.

Will pulled the book off of the shelf, and turned to find a scarlet faced Nico. Nico quickly turned, and tried to clear a spot on the table. "I've got it," Will said, stepping up next to Nico with the book. Nico turned too fast to respond, sending a stack of books tumbling to the floor.

"Tables are overrated," Nico muttered, stepping back and crossing his arms.

"How 'bout the floor, then?" Will said, plopping down with the book in his lap. Nico raised his eyebrows incredulously, but sat down next to Will.

Will opened cover of the book to a yellowed table of contents. He ran his finger down the ledger, almost purposefully, until he found 'Untitled, page 239' halfway down the page. The heavy paper arched through his fingers as he turned to the middle of the book.

Nico looked down at the poem, and then back up at Will with a slight frown. The poem was short, and the words were exceedingly simple, something a brand new camper might start with. He _knew _Will could read this; why wasn't he practicing Greek with a challenging poem? Still, he scooted up next to Will and pulled the book halfway onto his lap.

"Um... You read the first stanza, and I'll read the second?" Will asked.

"Sure."

Nico stared down at the verse 'Δεν έχει νόημα, Η μητέρα αγαπητέ, I

δεν μπορεί να τελειώσει μου ύφανση', then read in a clear voice, "It's no use, mother, I can't finish my weaving." He looked over at Will, who was staring determinedly at the text.

"You..." Will coughed, and continued softy. "You may blame Aphrodite, soft as she is." He swallowed, and his voice trailed off as he finished. "She has almost killed me with love for that boy."

Nico's eyes became fixated on chair leg in front of him, suddenly hyper-aware of where their knees and elbows and shoulders touched, and how he'd been leaning over Will to follow the words on the page.

The book shut with a loud snap. Will stood up more quickly than normal, and put the book back on the shelf as Nico desperately tried to find his composure.

Will turned around, catching Nico's gaze, and dropping it just as quickly.

"It's, uh, getting late," Nico said, checking the time on his nonexistent watch.

"Yeah, um, we should, um," Will gestured toward the door, and Nico nodded.

They walked through to the front of the big house, and paused for a moment on the porch. They were standing next to each other, but looking anywhere but.

"See you at dinner then?" Will asked the peeling paint by his foot.

"Yeah," Nico told the hanging plant, and then both boys stepped off the porch, heading opposite ways.

Nico headed toward the lake, a hesitant grin creeping onto his face.

Will rounded the Big House, his smile so wide and bright it was blinding.


End file.
